In this episode

There were signs of progress at the Syria peace conference Saturday after the government and the opposition agreed to meet in the same room for the first time. Reporter Deborah Amos shares the latest from the talks in Geneva with NPR's Jacki Lyden.

Fighting in Syria has internally displaced some 4 million people, and aid has only reached half of them. Humanitarian groups hope the talks in Geneva will allow them to get more aid into the country. NPR's Jacki Lyden speaks with Khaled Erksoussi, the head of operations for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

Suicide bombings like the one that killed two university colleagues in Kabul prompt many Americans to tell themselves they're safe from targeted violence in the U.S. We know that isn't true, says NPR's Jacki Lyden.

The Republican National Committee's annual meetings this week provided an opportunity to see how far Republicans have come in an effort, begun a year ago, to reach out to new voters — especially young people, minorities and women.

It's been a bitterly cold winter in much of the country, but hey, it could be worse: You could have been alive in the 6th century. Starting in 536 A.D., scholars wrote of a cold snap that lasted not days, but years. Journalist Colin Barra speaks with NPR's Jacki Lyden about scientists' quest to determine what caused the epic cold spell.

The U.S. World Cup soccer team is in Brazil for 12 days of training and acclimation. The team drew a challenging schedule for the competition and will be playing in the northern cities of Natal and Recife as well as the Amazonian city of Manaus.

Ever since there have been puddles of water, human beings have gazed at their reflections. Our need to primp and preen, whether we live in the Bronze Age or the Space Age, is on display in a new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York called Vanities: The Art of the Dressing Table.

Bite is a little shop in New York City where you can design your own lipstick. The lipstick is so natural, it's said to be good enough to eat. NPR's Jacki Lyden visits the "lip lab" and hears from Bite's manager, Melissa Colon, about how she picks the perfect color for her clients.

On Jan. 25, 2011, millions of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo to demand President Hosni Mubarak step down. Now those who led the revolution have all but disappeared, and iconic Tahrir Square is a bitter place for many — a reminder of a momentary high in a battle they say they have lost.

When a suicide bomber and gunmen attacked a popular restaurant in Kabul on Jan. 17, two of those who died worked for the American University of Afghanistan. Their deaths have shaken the young campus, which has been largely immune from violence. NPR's Jacki Lyden speaks to the university's president, C. Michael Smith, about how the bombing has affected both students and faculty.

Newspapers from the U.K. to the U.S. were reporting a sensational story this week about an abandoned cruise ship drifting across the Atlantic with a crew of cannibal rats aboard. It sounded too outrageous to be true, so we dug into the story and smelled, well, a rat.

The Olympics are less than two weeks away. The Russian host city of Sochi is busily preparing for the influx of athletes and media, but it's the security preparations that have people talking. Andrei Soldatov, the editor-in-chief of www.Agentura.ru, spoke to NPR's Jacki Lyden about security for the Games.

It's difficult to find a sport more maligned than curling, but curlers say that's changing. NPR's Jacki Lyden talks with Paul Savage, a formerly overweight Canadian curling champion who took home an Olympic medal at age 50. These days, the sport is more about fitness than it is about the beer.

The Australian Open is drawing to a close with Li Na of China winning the women's tournament on Saturday. If Rafael Nadal wins on Sunday, he'll be the first man to win all the majors twice in the era of opens. Howard Bryant of ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine joins NPR's Jacki Lyden to talk tennis and weigh in on the U.S. Olympic team's uniforms.

Author Antoine Saint-Exupery was French, but his beloved book, The Little Prince, wasn't written in Paris. Saint-Exupery wrote it in New York, and even included references to the island in his original manuscript.

Diane Johnson has spent much of her adult life living in France, writing novels like Le Divorce. But it was not until a visit home, to the Midwestern town of Moline, IL, that the Johnson discovered that her pioneer ancestors had lives worthy of writing about. Her new book, Flyover Lives reconstructs their stories.

Sixteen short stories of a triumphant, tragic, and most of all, hilarious life in show business make up Sam Harris' new memoir, Ham: Slices of a Life. NPR's Jacki Lyden speaks to Harris about his rise to fame after winning the first season of the 1980's hit TV show Star Search.